SnapJelly

the item will not be affected by the fuel when it's in the ''finished'' slot

Exactly so why wouldn't this be the case for every player? Iron exclusively spawns in enormous veins so???? Why not just grab more? This doesn't apply, what's stopping you from going 500 blocks in another diraction and finding another ultra high reading for iron and just grabbing more? Iron is everywhere, when would a player ever be in a situation where they can't go out to grab more? Because it makes you lose recources... which means you have to go get more recources??? Idk what's complicated about this? It's not an excuse, it is the reason. That's how good game design works in any game that you play the mechanics are build specifically to push you towards interacting with the rest of the game, you seem to be really specifically bothered about the iron but VS is full of this exact same gamedesign choice in other aspects that you don't seem to be aware off so let me give you some examples to make it clear: Food related only: - it doesn't make sense for a portion of fish to give less protein than a portion of meat, but fish is easier to get so it's nerfed to push people towards other protein sources. - it doesn't make sense for pountry to give less protein than pork but since chickens also lay eggs with is also a protein source their meat is nerfed so push players towards other protein sources. - it doesn't make sense for bear meat to be less nutritious than pork, irl bear meat is highly prised and very nutritious but bushmeat is nerfed in orther to push people towards interacting with the animal husbandry mechanics instead of prancing around the woords in full armor living only off bear and wolf meat. - which is also why you can't add bushmeat to meals, realistically this makes no sense but it is to guide people towards protein sources that can be used in meals - it doesn't make sense for cranberries to give less nutrition than other berries but because they (ispired by real life) keep longer the nutrition is nerfed to push people towards other sources of fruit and discourage exclusively relying on cranberries. Need me to continue? this is just 1 aspect of the game and It is stocked with gamedesign choices that aren't ''realistic'' but are made to guide the player towards other aspects of the game, you don't NEED to do any of them, the game is fully playable in any way you desire but it is up to the damedevs to make game mechanics that benefit from eachother, not bypass eachother. If mechanics are added to games without keeping this in mind you get what happened to the other block game; a bunch of fluff that has nothing to do with eachother and a very clear and obvious meta way of playing, this is not good gamedesign and other than minecraft games tend to not get away with it. You idea of it being an ''excuse'' is based on you not understanding how gamedesign works, It's not an excuse. ALL GAMES ARE BUILT LIKE THIS to an extend and Vintage story is exceptionally good at it.

Not really man, I spotted the differenct cuz it looks like a different block, high fert soil is harder to distinguish from medium fert cuz it's the same block with a different shade but clay just looks like something else

Well not really, it's literally on the floor exposed to the air. you can spot it from a distance and you just walk over and pick it up, it's quite easy i'd say I really think this is exaggerating it a bit man, you can spot different looking blocks right away, it does't take any skill. Yea sure if you don't know what clay looks like yet then you won't know right away that the different looking block is clay but walking up to it to have a closer look takes 1 second and is quite literally what every single person would do right away upon finding a new block, you check what it is. And I'm also pretty sure you can just see what it looks like in the handbook. But vintage story gives you a handbook that tells you exactly how to do everything exactly so that you won't have that experience

While I agree that it would make sense for clay to be craftable in some way it's much less likely that there actually isn't any clay close by than that you just missed it while exploring, most of the time when I struggle to find clay I end up eventually finding clay deposits much closer to my home that I initially just walked past and didn't spot but I don't really think that's a ''luck'' thing, it's just me not paying close attention. If it doesn't bother you you could try the xray mod, put it on red clay and set the radius only to 200 blocks or so and you'll be able to see if there is clay close by that you missed without really cheating all that much

No there's nothing like that in game, the cold would add 25% and something in your left hand would add 20%, so likely a combination of those 2 is what made your hunger rate go up to 145%

Ah yeah that does make a lot of sense, I am also now realising that the first time I played this game I happened to come across clay very early and quite literally next to my house so I immediately knew what it looked like and never really had that step where I am just mindlessly looking for something that idk where to get. I think that would be EXTREMELY COOL but I don't think that would solve much of the issue, I doubt many people would already have preexisting knowledge of which plants prefer clay so it would just be another thing you gotta read in the handbook to learn and is only really benefitial to older players who will likely not struggle much finding clay to begin with

These are fair criticisms but I wonder what effect this in actuality has on the gameplay though, this might just be personal but I never ever played this game and thought to myself: ''oh I can't find clay, let me go look for water or a basin or something cuz irl that's where clay is'' I just casually explore around the area I decide to settle in and at some point bump into clay. Yes it is technically possible for no clay to be very close to you at any point but you need clay so early in game it is highly unlikely you'd be at a point where your base is so large you couldn't just pick up all your stuff and move 400 blocks in some direction to be closer to clay if you so please. There's other things in game that are really rng dependent and you really just have to get lucky to bump into it at some point but I don't think clay is a good example, unless you're in a desert clay will likely be closeby

I didn't know this was a thing, that is SO useful!!

losing arrow in the grass is a standard experience for any archer XD It's most likely the purpose of those crescent moon arrowheads we find occasionally, they get stuck on the soil so are easy to find afterwards

Huh?? wym old and unsatisfying? That's how game development works??? It never stops being the case for any game at any point in time. Correct, and what does that change? Oke so when does this happen though? Give me a scenario where a player can not find an iron vein in a 2000 block radius or is otherwise unable to take more than a single stack and can never return?

It's not about it being realistic, it's a game mechanic designed to push the player towards interacting more with the world and with other mechanics, aka going out into the world and gather more recources. If you recover any meterial from the quench then the penalty is lower, which would encourage players to try more for better stats. So it encourages gameplay that is just sitting in a single room and grinding until you got the best gear. it rewards a gameplay style that avoids interacting with the rest of the world and mechanics, which is not good gamedesign.

This is actually how I caught my first pigs lol

Weirdly enough sandwiches are actually a very late invention irl, so within a medieval style setting a sandwich doesn't really fit. But adding one also doesn't really change much so I'm fine with it

I'm not sure if this would help but you could hold the spacebar down to just keep jumping when you have to climb, else you might be able to reroute the jump button to one that is easier to press for you, like if you have a mouse with buttons on the side for example one of those might be easier for you to press

So how would you want it to act then when placed? It shouldn't make a source but it can't vanish either?

the blueest block I can think off is kimberlite I guess but you're right it's not very bright blue. Not very many things in nature are bright blue though, but maybe a blue paint could be added somehow

well there is the item pickup highlighter mod, though I am not sure if it also works on thrown items but it's worth a shot

Sure I get that but I don't understand why I should care about losing metal at all? That's my point here, a single trip to the iron mine and you casually walk out with 10 stacks of ore before nightfall even hits, everyone is so worried about losing marerial but the material you're worried about losing is so unbelievably plentiful and easy to get, all you have to do is walk over and grab it. Once you get past the point of actually finding an iron vein (which you already have in this scenarion cuz we're at the quenching stage) that singular iron vein will grand you litteral mountains of ore, and if you SOMEHOW actually run out of iron in that one mine then it's highly unlikely you can't find another one 500 or so blocks in another direction. There is SO SO much iron in a gameworlds, it is SOOO plentiful, why be concerned about wasting some? Time, sure you do gotta spend time doing it but it's also just time playing the game so, I don't think having to spend more time just playing the game is really a net negative. Fuel sure you gotta make fuel, but from my personal experience I tend to make charcoal pits that are 5x5x2 blocks, it takes 25 stacks of logs to fill it completely + 1 log to start the firepit, filling this pit takes me less than a day and it'll give me mountains of charcoal. As I said before just chopping down a single 2x2 oak tree will give me enough logs to fill this pit twice and still have logs left over, it's hardly a hurdle. Oke I will give you that one. I didn't think about fireclay but you're right, especially if you didn't find any natural spawns it can be very painful to lose even a single piece

because then I have to worry less about my tool breaking and it recudes the chance of me having to carry a backup tool with me in case it breaks which would waste an extra inventory slot, and also trying out for the extra durability costs me almost nothing so why wouldn't I try?

so let me get this straight: 1) you prospect for iron 2) you find an ultry high or atleast very high source of iron 3) find the iron 4) you leave without taking an abondance of iron, you just grab like 20 chunks and leave? talk me through the logic here man? Why wouldn't you have access to lots of iron?

Why? just make a new one... it takes 1 minute and I have 10 stacks of iron ore stored

Sure but this is not a concern at all because I can literally get 10 stacks of iron ore in less than a day and a single 2x2 oak tree drops more wood than I can carry in a single inventory so... why would I care about a net loss of steel or coal? I can get mountains of it in like 20 minutes should I run out

what do you mean ''optimal''? there is no objective optimal amount because the optimal amount of quenches is going to be whatever the amount of quenches is required for the exact amount of power that you want. If I want 4 lvls of power increase then the optimal amount of quenches is 4, simple as that. It doesn't matter the likelyness of breakage means that statistically it's less likely that that would happen and I might lose more material than the benefit would gain because it's the only possible way for me to get the power to the desired lvl. Also this would hold way more water if material was rare which it isn't, you can het 10 stacks of ore in a single day so ''optimising for material lost'' is a waste of time imo, just get more. Its super easy to get more. Then you can quench to whatever lvl your heart desires. But it still can be? It's a players own choice. They didn't introduce a debuff to unquenched weapons as far as I'm aware so the experience can be exactly the same as it was prior to the quenchin being introduced, the choice to quench and the risk involved is completely up to player choice like with anything else. If you attack a bear you might get hides and fat but you might die or lose durability on your armor, this is a choice you make to see if the risk is worth it and you can fully choose not to. Go into a cafe you might encounter monster yadda yadda. Oke sure but onder those criteria the OP's worry about this game turning into a hardcore survival based on a percentage chance does also not apply, cuz that has nothing to do with these criteria.

Well you say that but steam power wouldn't be an upgrade past the ''steel age'', steamboats would be made of steel and run on coal so it wouldn't really be an upgrade. also you gotta consider size, how bigga boat are we talking? Is there any benefit to having a coal powered steamboat as opposed to a sailboat? Arguably, really depends on how each individual decides to play the game